One of the prettiest production cruisers ever built, the Pionier 10 has the manners and performance to match her appearance, says David Harding
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DAVID HARDING has been testing boats for more than 25 years. He is also a marine photographer and runs his agency Sailing Scenes
It turned out that we might indeed have made ourselves useful. A few hours later, we were at the bar in the Helford River Sailing Club when I noticed someone standing next to me. It was Chris Olsen, who I had last seen a good 10 years earlier in Dartmouth when testing the Elan 210. Chris had owned and run Yachts of Dartmouth, and Elan had been one of his new-boat dealerships.
Since then Chris had moved to Cornwall and concentrated on the surveying side of his business. His current boat, which he had been racing that evening, was a Pionier 10.
A plan started to form in my mind. Here was a chap I knew, with a boat I had always admired. I needed no excuse to return to the Helford and was always on the look-out for Me And My Boat candidates. And so it was that, three months later, I did indeed return – with my crew, because there was no leaving her behind on a trip like this.
One lovely summer’s evening last year (and lets be honest, we didn’t have many of those) we were making our way down the Helford River.
After six days of living and cooking aboard our chartered 25-footer, my crew and I were planning to drop anchor and row ashore for a decent meal.
As we went, we noticed a small fleet of yachts gathering near the mouth of the river. They were clearly getting ready to start a race of some kind and, as we were away from home and missing our regular club racing, we idly wondered if any of them might have needed extra crew.
LINES OF A CLASSIC
I have always admired the Pionier 10 (she has been around since the late 1960s) because she’s such a lovely boat to look at. And to some of us, that matters. There’s something about a spoon bow, a counter stern, well-balanced lines and a graceful sheer that encapsulates the essence of what a ‘proper yacht’ should look like.
One designer who made a habit of drawing boats that both looked good and sailed well was Van de Stadt. The legendary E G (Ricus) Van de Stadt was one of the pioneers in designing boats for glassfibre construction. He was also in the vanguard when it came to the development of the canoe body and the ‘fin
